Numerous bodies were found floating around and washed up along the shores of Ganga and Yamuna in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, triggering outbreak fears. Several bodies, decomposed, bloated, and suspected to be of people who succumbed to COVID-19, were found floating in Ganga in Bihar's Buxar, news agency PTI reported.
The district administration stated that none of the deceased were residents of the state. "Many Uttar Pradesh districts are situated right across the river and the bodies may have been dumped in the Ganges for reasons not known to us. We cannot confirm whether the deceased were indeed COVID-19 positive. The bodies have started decomposing. But we are taking all precautions while ensuring that these are disposed of in a decent manner," the administration stated, dismissing some of the numbers reported by local media—in the hundreds—as highly exaggerative.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, alarm bells rang after local residents in Hamirpur district spotted five bodies floating in the Yamuna, creating a scare that these were of COVID-19 patients. The apprehension, however, was soon dismissed by District Magistrate Gyaneshwar Tripathi. "After speaking to people and looking at the bodies, prima facie, it can be said these were not of COVID-19 patients as these were draped in a traditional manner and no body was wrapped as done in the case of COVID-19 victims," Tripathi said in a statement. The DM said local residents told police that people immerse bodies of their family members who die during the 'panchak nakshatra' and refrain from their cremation. The DM said some local fishermen told them that people generally tie a body to boulders and heavy stones before immersing it in the river.
With a rush in patients and deaths in hospitals, the crematoriums in the country have been overcrowded to a point of shutdown. A PIL in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday claimed that there is a lack of adequate cremation or burial sites in the national capital to deal with the daily rise in fatalities due to COVID-19. A bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh had issued notice to the Delhi government and sought its response to the plea which seeks allocation of additional permanent or temporary places for cremation of dead bodies.
The court listed the matter for hearing on May 17, along with a similar plea which was taken up on Tuesday (May 4), by the bench. The fresh plea by Delhi resident Jaswinder Singh Jolly also seeks a direction to the government to frame guidelines for the cremation of those deceased who loved ones cannot perform the last rites due to COVID-19. In his plea, filed through advocates Naginder Benipal and Harithi Kambiri, the petitioner has claimed that family members of the deceased "are being made to run from one cremation facility to another due to lack of space as well as wood".
-Inputs from PTI
